A gap exists in efforts to support the use of research evidence between ‘self-serve’ approaches such as ‘one-stop shops’ for research evidence (e.g., Health Systems Evidence – www.healthsystemsevidence.org) and ‘fullserve’ approaches such as convening stakeholder dialogues with health-system leaders that are informed by an evidence brief that synthesizes the best available research evidence. A rapid-response program could fill this gap by providing timely access to research evidence for health system decision-makers (i.e., policymakers and stakeholders who make, inform or implement decisions about health systems) when these decision-makers need support with finding and synthesizing the available research evidence but the timeline is too short to prepare a full evidence brief and convene a stakeholder dialogue,. This issue brief was prepared as an input to a half-day stakeholder dialogue involving those who will be involved in or affected by decisions about whether and how to develop a rapid-response program for health system decision-makers in Canada.